Civility has become the new political buzz word, but its meaning has been distorted to suit the left-liberal consensus Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary contains some lovely lines. One of them, as I learned
The experience of a dying friend shows that nursing home staff can prove to be good friends in death It’s many years since I was a monk and thus a professional in the death
Encouraging a chef’s creativity is fine, until you’re served a triangular wafer in a cocktail glass Recently, I was lucky enough to spend a week in Avignon. The hotel was excellent, the
A new exhibition in Madrid casts a rich new light on the 19th-century French masters In April 1874, a group of young French artists shunned by the art establishment held an exhibition
As anti-Thatcher literature blossomed in the 1980s, it was tempting to argue that the Right had won the economic war and the Left had won the cultural war. But the real victors of the past 30 years
‘When I finally reached Magadan, I hunted for days for a survivor. "I'm sorry, they are all dead," was the refrain. With male life-expectancy in Russia a mere 58, I should not
What was Van Gogh really like? A new exhibition brings us closer to the truth In a career lasting no more than ten years, Vincent Van Gogh produced about 900 paintings and 1,100